


have you listened to me lately? lately, i’ve been fuckin’ crazy

by outlawslikeus



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Anger, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Heartbreak, M/M, Melodrama, Not Beta Read, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23114650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outlawslikeus/pseuds/outlawslikeus
Summary: Jared has no one to talk to but himself. After all, he can’t go around telling anyone what he’s done, or worse, what he’s feeling.
Relationships: Evan Hansen/Jared Kleinman (One-sided)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	have you listened to me lately? lately, i’ve been fuckin’ crazy

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Some Nights (Intro) by fun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NH_ewgn-ys).

After his last conversation with Evan, he’s drafted what feels like hundreds of angry emails on his laptop. They’re all written after the sun has been down for hours and he’s laying in bed and supposed to be asleep, but his mind races. He wonders if they hadn’t said what they said, if they would still be okay right now.

But then he remembers the feeling of reaching out to Evan and showing him a sliver of his gaping heart, of slowing being pushed aside, of being left behind the moment Evan had found something better, and his throat tightens and his fingers fly over the keyboard in a flurry of motion.

“ _Fucking emails,_ ” he thinks, angrily, spitefully. He’s spent more time this year on emails than he ever thought he would. Writing those stupid emails with Evan, thinking that they were actually having fun, ignoring the nagging feeling that what they were doing was wrong, so wrong, because Evan was here with him, focused on every word he said. He hates himself for letting his defenses down enough to be hurt.

And then he sees it, on every social media feed from The Connor Project, and it’s all anyone is talking about. “ _Connor Murphy’s suicide letter,_ ” say the hushed and excited whispers from transgressors, aware of the taboo but unable to keep themselves from it. He reads it, of course, knowing it’s going to be another lie. He figures it out before he’s even reached the end of the letter. This one, this one isn’t a lie, at least not in the way the other ones had been. He thinks back to Evan calling him, frantic, with his world falling apart, and the high he had felt from being the one he had reached out to. He had never really stopped to wonder what exactly was in that letter that could be mistaken for a suicide note, but now, it’s heart-wrenchingly clear.

He still goes to school and carries on as normal, or as closely as he can. If he cuts class a few more times than usual that next week, no one is around to call him out on it. He catches glimpses of Evan out of the corner of his eye. His mess of emotions cuts within him until he feels disfigured and incomplete, about to stretch out of his own skin. 

One moment, he wants nothing more than to reach out, but he can’t bring himself to ask, can’t be the one to reach out after what happened, despite how much he craves reassurance that Evan is okay. The next, he’s drafting another email with too many poorly chosen words detailing his bloody heart and emotions he feels too deeply in his chest to ever let out, ever let another person see. Then he’s deleting it, the words on the screen making him face his own reality, which is not something he appreciates. The unnerving rate at which he switches between needing to know if Evan is okay and cursing his name is driving himself insane. He drives to school and he’s changed his mind twice in that short span of time. He promises himself he’s done wasting time on Evan Hansen and then later that night, he tastes salt and feels cool streaks left on his face as he types the latest nonsensical version of an email he’ll never send.

His networking class is going over common internet protocols, and they’re currently on POP3, or the _Post Office Protocol_. The one used to send emails. He glares at his worksheet, scrawling messy answers on it with more force than necessary, all the while muttering under his breath some truly inventive swears. He’s aware of how he looks and how others are looking at him, the fucking crazy kid talking to himself and about to explode with rage. It’s the same way they used to look at Connor, before. But if he doesn’t get it out somehow, he actually will go crazy. He writes so harshly that his pen tears into the paper, and he swears loudly, without regard for where he is. The teacher looks up from where he sits at his desk, annoyed at the disruption and having been bothered from whatever it was he had been doing. He’s sent out to the hallway, seething and waiting until the reprimanding is over so he can run into the bathroom to let out the choked sobs he’s been tamping down.

There’s one draft he’s written, not to Evan, but to The Connor Project community, detailing the horrid exploits he and Evan have taken to arrive where they are today, and he stares at the blinking cursor when he’s done, knowing he will never post it and that no one else can ever see it, like all the others. He prints out a hard copy of it (and stands by the printer as it prints, ready to take it the moment it’s done — he’s much more careful than Evan, thank you very much) and stuffs it paper into his backpack quickly. No one notices.

That night, when he arrives home to an empty house, he goes out to the backyard and burns the tiny, crumpled pieces of paper. “ _Never say I’m not melodramatic,_ ” he snarks in his own mind, because if there’s one thing he’s always had spades of, it was biting self-awareness.

It’s cathartic, watching the flames eat at the paper and the words disappear. After making sure the fire is out, he walks back inside and opens up his laptop. He deletes the numerous lingering drafts from his desktop, relics from when he had been close to breaking the silence between him and Evan but hadn’t changed his mind quickly enough to delete on the spot. Once they’re all gone, he opens his trash and empties it for good measure. He’s said his piece and even if no one heard it, he still gets the release of the words he needs to say leaving his system. 

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetad, so let me know about any spelling/grammar mistakes. Kudos, comments, concrit, feedback, anything you dis/liked, etcetera are appreciated. Drop your favorite line or something in the comments.
> 
> Follow me at [outlawslikeus](https://outlawslikeus.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
